Editor’s Note:Children grasp complicated and difficult concepts and emotions easily. Their innocence allows them to. We all say, “Don’t hate anyone, it is not worth it.” While it might be tough for us adults to abide by this, the little ones can be made to understand. And then they will listen too. Here is a wonderful way shared by our member tuffyshri on how it can be done. Share your ideas with us here.
The class II of Indian Public School was a busy one. There were 30 children who all loved their teacher Dhivya maam. Dhivya maam used to play lot of games with them, tell and read stories, and all.
One day she gave an assignment to the class.
‘Children, I am giving you an assignment for one week. How many days are there in a week?’
‘Seven’ promptly came the reply
‘Very Good!! So this is what you have to do. Take your rough note’
‘Done’ came the reply
‘OK, write down the names of people who you hate the most. Now what is the opposite of ‘hate’?’
‘Love’ came back the reply
‘Excellent Children! I will give you 5 minutes for you to write. You need not show this to anyone. Not even to your parents and not even to me’
The kids got excited and they all started thinking and writing down.
After 5 minutes ‘Done’!!!!!
‘OK now close your notebook; go home and collect potatoes. How many names you have written, you should collect that many potatoes and put them in a plastic bag. Give each potato a name that you have written down in your notebook. Tomorrow you should bring them to the class. I will tell you what you have to do with that’
And the children went home excitedly. Next day they all came with potatoes in plastic bag. Some had only one while some had more like five or six in a bag. No child was left out.
‘So.. what you do with this potato is’ said the teacher ‘from today, for the next 4 days you have to keep carrying this potato everywhere. Wherever you go… whatever you do… you have to carry this until you are in the school. Let it be lunch hour or Games hour or even to your bathroom… do that. Understand???’
‘Yes maam’
What started as an exciting thing became tiresome in the later days. For some bad smell started coming out of the bag. (Here you can teach your kid about plant’s life cycle, decomposable vs non decomposable objects, difference between good smell and bad smell – from there you can teach the sense organs, etc. Unleash your imagination!)
The potatoes started to rot day by day and is causing the smell. They couldn’t sit with the bag. They couldn’t eat food peacefully. The next class also started complaining about this classroom being very smelly.
For those who had more in a bag like 5 or 6, felt the bag to be too heavy to carry.
They got relieved as the teacher asked them to throw the bags away on the last day.
She then asked the kids about the experience. The children all nodded in silence that the assignment experience was a bad one indeed.
‘So you all noted down the names of the people who you hate in those potatoes right….’
‘Yes maam’
‘And what happened to them?? They started stinking and rotten’
‘mmm…mm…’
‘We had to throw away them at any cost… right’
‘mmmm…’ murmured the class
‘Your heart is the plastic bag. The hate is the potatoes that you hold in your heart. What happens after some time?? The potatoes will start smelling. Similarly your heart also will become smelly and heavy as you carry those hate potatoes. And then they start contaminating your whole mind… Understand??’
‘Yes maam…’ the children got excited.
‘So please throw away the hate for anyone and anything out of your mind. You don’t want to carry the rotten, smelly, heavy potato bag, do you??’
‘No maam…’ cried the children and happily dumped the potatoes into the trash can!!
